An extract made from a plant long-used in traditional Chinese medicine called the thunder god vine, reduces food intake and has led to a dramatic 45 percent decrease in body weight in obese mice.The Washington PostScientists have long been scouring the globe in search of a miracle plant that will cure obesity. And some researchers are saying they may have finally found it.According to the Washington Post, an extract made from a plant long-used in traditional Chinese medicine called the thunder god vine, reduces food intake and has led to a dramatic 45 percent decrease in body weight in obese mice.
In the study, scientists found that with only one week of treatment with an extract made from thunder god vine—which they called Celastrol—the mice reduced their food intake by 80 percent as compared with those who did not get the extract. Three weeks later, those mice had lost nearly half of their initial body weight.
A word of caution, however, before you go running to Chinatown in search of this plant: While the team did not find any toxic effects of the extract in mice, the researchers strongly cautioned that more studies needed to be done to demonstrate the compound’s safety in humans.
Relevant source:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2015/05/22/harvard-study-could-chinese-thunder-god-vine-plant-be-cure-all-for-weight-loss/Curated from the Washington Post